Battery industry/petroleum industry..which is more damaging to the enviroment?

Question

Battery industry/petroleum industry..which is more damaging to the enviroment?

Answer 1

Batteries Vs. Petroleum-Which is worse?

My first answer seemed to be too complicated for many readers so I am revising with the short story.

Exactly who's environment are you concerned about? If it the environment in the United States then batteries are better for it. If you expand your concern to the Global environment then maybe petroleum might be safer at least in the short term.

Currently, rechargeable batteries are built and recycled in third world conditions by desperately poor people who are much more concerned with feeding their family today than they are in the long term effects of cadmium and lithium on the environment tomorrow. If you agree with this thinking and that it is ok to expose Chinese and Taiwanese families to long term heavy metal poisoning, then by all means continue to use as many batteries as you can get your hands on. After all, it does save the US from a lot of pollution.

PSST.....we all share the same water and atmosphere, so eventually the US will also reap the benefits of heavy metals in the biosphere.....

Answer 2

Petroleum, hands down.

Petroleum is vastly larger.

The battery business has cleaned up its' act recently.  It's easier for them than for petroleum.

Global warming finishes the discussion off, emphatically.

By comparison to petroleum, the battery industry is really insignificant. Even if it grows a hundredfold, to power electric vehicles.  They'll be designed for easy recycling, as Prius' batteries already are.

Answer 3

Petroleum is damaging from start to finish

exploration rigs in sensitive environments; pipelines; tankers; refineries; storage tanks; inefficient combustion in engines which rarely run at optimum load or power and  create a lot of unwanted noise & heat in the process; rare metals required to cope with the heat and pressure and catalyse some of the waste gasses; plus anti-freeze; complicated cntaminated un-recyclable gearbox & clutch materials, fuel tank, pipes & injector systems ...

batteries can be refueled from an effiecent leak free distribution network from constantly maintained & monitored power stations

electric motors are simpler to make; don't need complex transmission (Tesla has 7 moving parts in transmission http://www.teslamotors.com )

Answer 4

Battery housings are made from plastic: an oil derived product.

Batteries are often recharged from mains electricity, usually supplied by power stations fired by fossil fuels.

*However* batteries have to be less damaging to the environment, because once they are made they can be used over and over again, and if charged from wind/solar then they provide free energy.

If only they could find a way to make them significantly lighter...

Answer 5

Not much to choose between them I am afraid - but I do know it is the larger concerns doing the most damage and getting away with it - Oh well lets keep on recycling for all the good it will do while the big boys carry on polluting.

Answer 6

The petroleum industry uses more carbon fuel that most other industries.

Answer 7

Batteries are not consumed in the process of providing energy.  Therefore when it becomes inefficient to recharge them the raw material is still there to recycle them into new batteries.

Can't do that with oil.

Answer 8

It is all very well to rant on about batteries being toxic at the end of their usable lifespan, but so is water if you drink enough of it.

Fossil fuels are toxic from start to finish.

You create toxic waste making it and using it. Batteries create toxic waste at the beginning of their life and at the end.

OK so they are charged using electricity but it is not the fault of the battery industry if electricity is created using fossil fuels this is the fault of the power services.

During the usable life of a battery and while being charged they give off Hydrogen and Oxygen two none toxic gasses, While fossil fuels are giving off many toxic gasses.

The battery industry is spending billions to improve their product and increase it's usable life while the fossil fuel industry is doing very little to make it's product better and less toxic.

But having said this.

I believe that in the end neither will win out. I think that 50 years from now we will be totally reliant on Hydrogen fuels, created using renewable energy sources,

This is the dawning of the age of Hydrogen.

The sooner fossil fuels, in all it's guises, is a thing of the past the better